Inspections & Checklists Case Study
Smart Digital Forms for Maintenance, Safety and Compliance
Improve equipment uptime by digitizing inspections, checklists and work order forms to drive proactive maintenance and streamline operational efficiency.
Overview
Conduct compliance checklists and inspections on your mobile device and augment with digital status updates, photo attachments, date, time and location:
Eliminate paperwork and double handling of information by conducting inspections on your mobile device.
Automate equipment condition updates in real-time and supplement with key information such as urgent repair alerts, location and photos to help diagnose issues faster and more efficiently.
Digital record-keeping makes it easier for your team to stay on top of jobs and share information quickly and effortlessly, giving you more time to focus on the things that really matter to your business.
Improve consistency and really measure compliance to ensure maintenance and H&S standards are achieved.
The Problem
Field staff such as equipment operators and vehicle drivers are expected to complete pre-start or pre-trip checklists to help maintain equipment and comply with health & safety regulations. This can be difficult to manage and ensure accuracy and consistency.
Paperwork leads to lost forms, delays updating data and time-consuming double-handling of information as data needs to be manually entered into systems.
Human error leads to mis-identification of assets or data entry errors leads to the wrong assets being updated with the wrong information. This creates compounding problems where the wrong asset is serviced, wasting parts and time, while the asset that actually required service or repair is still in need of service. Once these data entry issues occur it undermines your wider asset management and maintenance programs.
Inconsistent compliance as operators forget or ignore pre-start requirements or they figure no one really looks at the inspections anyway.
Equipment is out of compliance or issues are unattended and neglected as inspections are not completed consistently or are lost or damaged. Even when inspections are entered into systems such as spreadsheets, jobs have restrictive visibility due to limited access to information.
Pain Points
Equipment maintenance is not optimised as inspection information is delayed or lost.
Equipment requiring maintenance or compliance is hard to find and location is not up-to-date, causing delays and avoidable downtime.
Equipment compliance is compromised and difficult to stay on top of.
Operators neglect pre-start checks and routinely use equipment while skipping inspections.
Safety and maintenance culture is “hit and miss” creating holes in compliance and assets routinely being operated outside company policies.
Process and standards are not followed due to difficulties and a lack of faith in the system.
The Solution
Blackhawk provides a comprehensive solution for smart, digital forms. These forms can be easily customized and updated in real-time and instantly available to field users via mobile browser, iOS or Android application. This includes:
With globally unique ID codes can be used by field staff to quickly and accurately identify assets for digital inspections or checklists. This helps ensure the right data is entered for the correct asset and maintain data integrity. Our specialized QR codes can be used without the need to download anything or even register, making digital forms easily accessible to your team members.
Pre-start / pre-trip / pre-hire / drop-off or pick-up checklists. Conduct inspections effortlessly on your mobile device. Automatically capture timestamps, location data, user ID and add photos. Automatically update equipment status when urgent faults are recorded, alerting maintenance team and notifying all stakeholders automatically when assets go down. Forms can be asset specific for types of equipment or vehicles.
Conduct and record safety reports electronically. Take 5 forms, hazard reports, faulty or missing safety equipment, etc. Our flexible forms solution makes it easy to create custom forms and update instantly with changes or additional questions.
Update key compliance data such as Warrant of Fitness, annual certification, required testing or inspections digitally. When certificates are issued these can also be digitally stored against individual assets using our Documents and Files feature.
Report issues that require attention or are causing asset downtime instantly. Automatically raise alerts and escalation notifications, switch asset status to “needs repair” or “faulty” so that everyone has visibility of the problem. Follow-up with resolution reporting from qualified technicians while automatically measuring downtime and time to resolution for utilization and performance analysis.
As with breakdown reporting, report roadside vehicle issues with digital forms and include GPS location data and photos to help guide call-out responders directly to the right place with the right parts, first time, every time. These forms can be available to anyone that needs them without downloading anything or having an account making it easy for new customers or employees to access the right forms.
User information can be added to forms or logged- in users are automatically identified so you know who is reporting issues and who is using equipment.
Photos can be easily uploaded with digital forms making it easier to understand the nature of problems and provide richer context, such as the surrounding location or help with visual diagnosis of the problem.
Rich data is automatically captured as part of the form or can be requested as a custom field. This automatically enhances the overall benefits of digital forms. It helps ensure timely resolution, organize and prioritize problems and enable managers to report on and understand a range of KPIs such as response times, identify patterns or reoccurring issues.
All forms can be created and updated using our easy-to-use form editing tools. These are intuitive, easy to understand tools that enable anyone to customize or update forms without special training or coding experience. Updates and changes are then immediately applied; no need to re-print and re-distribute forms. It also makes it easy to customize a standard template form for specific asset types, such as tracked vs wheeled assets.
With smart digital forms a range of automated actions and workflows can be enabled. This includes notifications and alerts, automated equipment status changes (including visual colour changes for asset icons), automatic reporting classification and measurement of time in state (how long an asset is down for maintenance, out of compliance, or how long issues take to receive attention). This automation means that key stakeholders can be informed and aware of key issues without the need for time-consuming manual updates or account management. It also means every form triggers consistent actions and follow-up, reducing instances of human error or “dropped balls”.
A key benefit of digital forms is real-time action and follow-up. No more waiting for paper forms to make it back to the office, days later, and eventually entered into the system. You also no longer have to depend on “firefighting” phone calls to escalate urgent problems or arrange replacement assets. Now, as soon as a fault or a problem is reported, it is available to maintenance and operational teams. Everyone can see what is happening and make informed decisions to prioritize jobs and take actions. This accelerates response times, reduces downtime and improves efficiency and asset utilization as well as improving safety and compliance.
Automatically track asset state and show visual asset icons so anyone can see at a glance where assets need attention. This helps maintain constant situational awareness and enables user to filter assets by state, location and asset type.
Automatically measure asset downtime, drive informed analysis and decision making and track trends and improvements over time.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Digital forms enable you to report on asset compliance, utilization, downtime, maintenance issues and a host of other key asset criteria. Blackhawk provides an in-depth reporting solution complete with built-in dashboards, filters, scheduled reports and customer reporting through PowerBI or data export and API integration for third-party reporting tools.
Augment digital forms with active asset tracking and monitoring. Implement proactive maintenance based on runtime or mileage. Track compliance and other KPI’s automatically.
Blackhawk provides a range of modular asset management solutions. Enhance inspections and checklists with supporting documents, files, videos, enable a digital asset assistance for every asset and connect field users to service booking forms, parts ordering, location updates, chain-of-custody, warranty registration, and much more. Talk to us today.
The Benefits
Digital inspections and checklists provide a range of benefits:
Who Benefits
Operational Teams
Improve operational efficiency and visibility of assets, workflow automations and digital convenience. Digital forms make operator’s and driver’s lives easier.
Maintenance / Service Department
Improve resource planning and visibility of maintenance needs as well as real-time alerting and supporting information such as location, timestamps and photos.
Management
Asset managers and C-level management have greater oversight and insight of asset maintenance and lifecycle. Compliance is better managed, and safety and compliance standards are measured and visible.
Finance
Greater maintenance efficiency leads to lower costs, improved productivity and utilization, leading to improved profitability.
Use Cases
Here are some real-world examples of how we apply digital inspections and checklists for asset management:
Contract Forklift Maintenance (Fonterra) (NZ)
Contract GSE Maintenance (AirNZ)
Thinxtra / GSE Airline operations
Wheelchair Tracking (AU)
Wheelchair Tracking (AU)
Wheelchair Tracking (NZ)
